Sometimes things go according to plan or even better. Not often mind you, but this is one thing that we managed to accomplish quicker and easier than expected. Beetle Busting, or treating the wood for termites, Capricorn beetle and other nasties. It is absolutely necessary and as we were well aware that we had some Capricorn beetle we wanted to get on with it pronto.

We were expecting the stuff to stink but actually it wasn’t too bad, although it did sting especially when I sprayed it into my eye!! It took us the whole day to do 3 treatments and today we cleaned up the mess that it made as half of what we sprayed ended up on the floor!! As with anything that we undertake it was a daunting prospect yesterday morning as we had to do every bit of wood in the roof, and we have a huge roof. However we now have beams that should be good for 20 years.

The treatment stuff

We used 180 litres!

All the wood that we treated

Chief Beetle Buster!

One of the beetles we found the next day

Disconcertingly large I thought!

Unrelated to the spraying but I came across another scorpion whilst cleaning

We wore masks, promise!! I also wore googles which kept misting up so I couldn’t see anything! The beams are looking fab now, it is a shame that we have to cover some of the smaller ones and the Spanish tiles with insulation, but if we don’t we will freeze in winter and swelter in summer!

christaleste

I’m glad to see you’ve done this yourself, as we are looking into treating our roof by ourselves as well. We got the scam call last summer by fake “experts” who wanted us to pay €5000 for them to treat our fairly tiny roof. We had to almost literally kick the guy out of the house. (He stayed for three hours and kept trying to sell his products and services.) Since then we have actually noticed some signs of infestation–primarily, sawdust piles. I’m not a fan of spending €5000 to get rid of bugs, nor of having little plastic plugs in my beautiful beams every 50 cm. We’ve decided to do the treatment ourselves but are still trying to decide on the injection process. So far we’re looking at injecting only the three big support beams and just painting the chevron beams. Did you inject at all? Did you use pressure injectors? What’s the status of your infestation now, two years later? Thanks very much! You can follow our renovation story (which I’m writing in French) at http://www.lacutehouse.wordpress.com and the earlier version http://www.lacutehouse.blogspot.com. Your house looks great! Wishing you great success in your projects!